Alice Jong

Research Manager

New York, New York United States

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Ms. Jong joined the Phocuswright team in June 2016. With a B.S. in finance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she started her career in banking but chose to transition to an industry she was passionate about, earning a M.S. in travel and tourism management at NYU. She's since held a series of positions with various travel organizations, including HeBS Digital, Singapore Tourism Board and Travelzoo, bringing extensive hands-on experience in digital marketing and travel to inform Phocuswright's global research. As a yoga enthusiast with a major case of wanderlust, she also serves as a part-time yoga teacher and loves to travel to any destination off the beaten path.

Click here to download Alice's high resolution photo from the Phocuswright media gallery.

Recent Alice Jong Travel Research

Online travel agencies’ share of the U.S. travel
market is projected to hold steady in 2018 at 19%, and hotels remain the
biggest segment for OTAs. The battle between intermediaries and suppliers for
online dominance remains fierce, and OTAs currently capture 38% of online
bookings. Expedia and Booking.com maintain their grip on the OTA market, with a
combined 92% share of OTA gross bookings. This report provides a high-level
overview of the U.S. OTA landscape, including key players, segment and
distribution analysis, and sizing projections through 2022.

Expedia and Booking.com continue to dominate the
U.S. online travel agency space, and the two are making deeper inroads into
segments outside flights and hotels. The two segment leaders, along with other
key players such as Google and TripAdvisor’s Viator, are actively targeting the
travel activities market. Meanwhile, OTAs seek other ways to gain an edge, and
are exploring voice, machine-learning and chat-based functionality. This report
explores the most notable trends and stories that are currently impacting the
U.S. OTA landscape.

Technology has
driven massive shifts in consumer travel behavior. Travelers now dream of,
research, shop and book their travel across devices, and are led into the
funnel through various advertising channels. The travel industry has bounced
back after a few difficult years, and advertising budgets are likewise rising.
Based on a combination of executive interviews, surveys and market sizing work,
this report represents a deep dive into the travel ad spend landscape in the
U.S. and Europe, exploring the essential trends that define digital travel
advertising.

Hotels and air have historically been the biggest pieces of OTA business, but 2018 kicked off with a flurry of activity around the less-talked-about segments like activities, packaging, rail and car. Public online travel companies made alignments and acquisitions, and rolled out technology and product enhancements, all in the name of offering a fuller plate of travel services. Meanwhile, currencies rebounded in some parts of the world but remained volatile in others. Collective gross bookings from 10 publicly reported companies rose 22% in the first half of 2018 (1H18).

Big changes from the very top marked a new era
for online travel’s biggest public companies in 2017. Booking Holdings (formerly
The Priceline Group) started the year under the new leadership of Glenn Fogel,
while Expedia kicked off Q3 with Mark Okerstrom stepping up as CEO after Dara Khosrowshahi ended his tenure. In the Asia Pacific
(APAC), Jane Sun wrapped her first full year as Ctrip’s CEO, and MakeMyTrip
president and Ibibo Group
founder
Ashish Kashyap resigned in September. Buenos Aires-based online travel agency
Despegar.com filed for a $100 million IPO in
August, bringing Latin America (LATAM) into the public pool.

The online travel arena became even
more complex in 2017 as travel companies expanded their offerings and crossed
traditional boundaries. Online travel agencies’ (OTAs) competition no longer comes
just in the form of other traditional OTAs and suppliers, but also as metasearch
platforms, private accommodation aggregators, mobile-only apps and newer
platforms hoping to carve a niche for themselves.

Despite the country’s uneven economic performance and a
fluctuating Canadian dollar, the Canadian travel market has remained strong
over the past several years and is projected to grow 6% in 2017. The growth reflects
travel’s importance among Canadians and the country’s appeal as a destination. This
report presents findings on the Canadian leisure travel market, including sizing
and projections from 2015-2021, analysis of key segments, distribution
dynamics, major players and more. Drawing on a survey of Canadian leisure
travelers, it also features a range of metrics and trends on consumer travel,
including trip frequency and length, destination selection, booking methods and
more.

It’s been one of digital travel’s hottest topics, and with good reason: nearly half of U.S. travelers now use it to shop for flights and hotels. So Phocuswright partnered with data analytics firm Jumpshot to dig deep into travel metasearch and understand how the big players – KAYAK, trivago, TripAdvisor and Google – stack up across flights and hotels. Phocuswright analyst Alice Jong walks us through who’s up, who’s down, who delivers more referrals and more conversions. This extended data deck is now available exclusively to Phocuswright Research Subscribers and 2017 Phocuswright Conference Attendees.

Public online travel companies increasingly tried to be everything to everyone in the first half of 2017 (1H17), no longer satisfied with just sticking to the business of processing travel transactions or driving clicks. Eyes were on metasearch as newly public Trivago set off to pursue global ambitions, and Priceline’s Kayak gobbled up international players Momondo and Mundi. The biggest online travel agencies (OTAs) went full speed ahead integrating vacation rental options into their booking engines to keep their accommodation businesses competitive amidst private accommodations’ rising popularity. The online travel world remained resilient and optimistic as collective gross bookings by nine publicly reported companies rose.

While the travel industry tends to be preoccupied with what’s
happening in air and hotel, it’s the activities on the ground that inspire
travelers to go places. Travel activities, the aggregate of in-destination
spend on tours, activities, attractions and events, is the third-largest travel
segment and accounts for 10% of global travel revenue. This report explores the
state of travel activities to assess the market landscape, the challenges ahead
and the opportunities for distribution in the broader travel marketplace.